Why Didn’t We Become a Nation?

One of the central questions in Afghanistan’s modern history is why we have never managed to form a unified nation. For more than a century, we have had experience with state-building, repeatedly creating new institutions, and, in the past twenty years, we have been presented with unprecedented opportunities to construct a modern nation under extensive Western presence and support. Yet the outcome was not the emergence of a shared identity, but rather a deepening of crises and social fragmentation. Even today, Afghanistan remains less a nation-state than a patchwork of local and fragmented loyalties.

I must also acknowledge that the motivation for writing this article arose from an experience on my Telegram channel. I usually write essays that go beyond daily politics, inviting readers to reflect more deeply on our history and collective destiny. Yet when I encountered some of the reactions and comments, I noticed that several readers, rather than engaging with the core subject, had sought to target one another’s ethnic groups. Such responses only sharpened the question in my mind: why, after all this time, have we still not become a single nation?

Two important ideas help explain this failure. Ibn Khaldun’s concept of asabiyyah (traditional solidarity) suggests that a state and political community can only endure when social solidarity transcends the tribal level and rises to the national scale. Ali Shariati, meanwhile, emphasized the necessity of historical and cultural self-awareness, arguing that no nation can achieve cohesion without recognizing its past and embracing a shared identity. These two guiding lines will be explored in this article to demonstrate why Afghanistan failed to become a nation and what conditions are necessary for its future.

Nation-building in Afghanistan must be understood within the framework of the country’s political and social history. The creation of modern Afghanistan was less the result of natural historical development than of nineteenth-century geopolitical pressures, particularly the so-called “Great Game” rivalry between Britain and Russia. Colonial powers drew borders that defined Afghanistan not as a historical nation, but primarily as a buffer zone. A buffer zone is a territory whose main value lies not in its institutions or society, but in its geographic position as a space separating rival powers.

The Wakhan Corridor in northeastern Afghanistan is the clearest example of such artificial border-making. This narrow, mountainous strip connecting Afghanistan to China and wedged between Pakistan and Tajikistan was deliberately designed in the late nineteenth century as a buffer to prevent direct border contact between British India and Tsarist Russia. Wakhan did not emerge from geographic logic or the needs of its inhabitants, but solely from the political calculations of colonial powers. From then until today, the region’s remoteness and neglect by central governments have kept it largely outside the nation-building process, an explicit example of how colonial boundary-making damaged national cohesion. Under such conditions, traditional solidarity, in Ibn Khaldun’s terms, remained scattered and never reached the national level, while, as Shariati observed, the absence of a shared historical consciousness prevented the formation of a unifying narrative.

Moreover, colonialism also shaped Afghanistan’s internal politics. To consolidate its influence, Britain often relied not on inclusive national institutions but on empowering a single group, particularly the Pashtuns, to dominate the entire country. This strategy later became entrenched as the tradition of “Pashtun leadership” in modern Afghan history. Such a policy deliberately obstructed the emergence of national solidarity, as loyalty was elevated toward one group while others were marginalized. At the same time, the Pashtuns themselves bore the greatest cost: they carried the heavy burden of legitimizing successive dependent regimes, while colonial boundary-making fractured and weakened their own identity and cohesion.

This duality created a historical contradiction: on the one hand, an emotional and political attachment to kin across the border, and on the other, the need to demonstrate loyalty to Afghanistan’s other ethnic groups. This contradiction repeatedly surfaced in practice. For example, in the final days of Ashraf Ghani’s government, as provinces fell one after another, he allocated enormous sums of money to the Pashtuns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This decision was incomprehensible to Afghan public opinion, but it reflected precisely that emotional and historical bond forged and reinforced by colonial border policies. Such divides prevented the rise of an independent and inclusive nationalism in Afghanistan.

After the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the international community sought to advance a project of nation-building and state-building in Afghanistan. Billions of dollars were spent, new institutions were created, elections were held, and national army and police forces were established. Yet in 2021, this political system collapsed almost overnight. The collapse once again demonstrated that a state built without national solidarity and a society without historical self-awareness rests on fragile foundations and crumbles at the first crisis.

The failure of this experiment had multiple causes. The institutions created relied on foreign aid rather than domestic support. Widespread corruption diverted financial resources away from strengthening the national state and instead empowered mafia networks and local patronage systems. The distribution of power within government produced “islands of authority” rather than cohesive ministries and agencies that operated as fiefdoms, accountable to no unified national framework. Most importantly, no common discourse emerged to unite all social groups under the banner of one nation. This was precisely the warning of Ibn Khaldun: no state can endure without national solidarity. And it was what Shariati underscored: no nation can be formed without historical self-awareness.

The failure of nation-building in Afghanistan can be explained through several fundamental factors: the tribal and local structures that reinforced narrow loyalties and undermined national cohesion; political and administrative institutions that were never inclusive and often became tools of local or ethnic competition; foreign interventions that continually weakened political independence and rendered governments in the eyes of the people as dependent or leased entities; and, finally, the absence or ineffectiveness of a national intelligentsia capable of fulfilling the mission Shariati envisioned: cultivating historical self-awareness.

The experience of other nations that succeeded in nation-building demonstrates how national solidarity and historical self-awareness can transform a country’s destiny. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Türkiye stood on the verge of disintegration, but Atatürk’s leadership established a modern nation through Turkish national solidarity and institutional reforms. In the nineteenth century, Japan, under the Meiji reforms, remained faithful to its historical traditions while pursuing modernization. Even countries such as Malaysia and Tunisia, despite ethnic and religious diversity, managed to build forms of shared civic identity by creating more inclusive institutions and focusing on economic development. In all these cases, the same two elements are evident: encompassing solidarity and historical self-awareness.

In Afghanistan, by contrast, solidarity remained local and fragmented. Because governments failed to extend modern structures into villages and rural communities, no shared historical narrative emerged to bind people together. This explains why nation-building in Afghanistan failed.

Nation-building in Afghanistan is only possible if both theoretical and practical dimensions are addressed simultaneously. From Ibn Khaldun’s perspective, fragmented solidarities must be elevated to the national level; from Shariati’s view, such elevation cannot occur without shared historical and cultural self-awareness. The first step must be a redefinition of national identity based on equal citizenship, that is, the Afghan individual is above all a citizen of the state, not merely a member of a tribe. This shift must be institutionalized through education and media so that the new generation is raised with shared narratives of history and culture.

The next step is the creation of inclusive institutions that allow all people to participate and replace traditional tribal relations. Trade unions, local councils, and civil associations can serve as tools for transitioning from the dominance of kinship and coercion to law and civic participation. At the same time, a rational, urban reinterpretation of religion, particularly Afghanistan’s historical Hanafi jurisprudence, could once again make faith a pillar of civilization, freeing it from the confines of tribalism.

Alongside institutional and cultural reforms, Afghanistan must reduce its dependence on foreign powers and move toward a productive economy. Modern agriculture, small industries, national industrialization, and the nationalization of natural resources could create new linkages between towns and villages, fostering broader economic and social solidarity.

Ultimately, this transition cannot happen without the role of intellectuals. They must awaken historical and cultural consciousness in society, generate unifying narratives, and build bridges between the historical experience and a civic future. Intellectuals must fulfill precisely the role Shariati envisioned: linking the people with their past, present, and future.

Afghanistan has launched nation-building projects repeatedly, but each time they have failed. The reason is clear: solidarities never rose to the national level, and shared self-awareness never emerged. Ibn Khaldun’s insistence on solidarity and Shariati’s emphasis on historical self-awareness are both borne out in Afghanistan’s case. Until these two elements are achieved, every government will remain fragile, and every nation-building project will be doomed to repeat past failures.

And you, fellow Afghan whether in your small shop, a crowded office, at a scorched university desk, or as that broken young woman whose entire future has been stolen by the Taliban and who now struggles with her pain in a corner of her home each time you open (Hasht-e Subh) and read the words of this exiled, heartbroken writer who still believes in the country’s potential, remember this: every time you attack the ethnicity, color, or faith of your compatriot, you are enacting exactly the design colonialism imposed on this land. These contradictory geographies and artificial borders were created to divide us. You can continue down that path, spending centuries trapped in the same cycle until every cultural and economic asset is destroyed and all that remains is a barren, mountainous, impoverished land. Or you can recognize that this path leads to ruin, and instead of repeating ethnic and sectarian resentments, seek to understand the problem and find a way beyond it.

Yet the future is not sealed. If Afghanistan can elevate social solidarity from the tribal and local to the national level and foster a shared historical and cultural self-awareness, the possibility of building a unified nation will emerge. The road is difficult, but the experience of other countries shows that nation-building is possible, provided it is built on internal solidarity and collective awareness.

Sources

Ibn Khaldun, Abd al-Rahman. The Muqaddimah. Translated by Mohammad Parvin Gonabadi. Tehran: Scientific and Cultural Press, 1996.
Shariati, Ali. Return to the Self. Tehran: Dr. Shariati Cultural Foundation, 2010.
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Gregorian, Vartan. The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880–1946. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969.
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